


You Fund-Raise Me Up

by theartofbeinganerd



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Teachers, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Humor, I Don't Intend for There to be Angst, I promise, It Will be Short-Lived, but if there is
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2018-12-15 03:45:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11797710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theartofbeinganerd/pseuds/theartofbeinganerd
Summary: When a greedy politician rolls out his new policy that’ll leave a small-town middle school with a lack of enough funds to stay open after the current school year, the residents of the town think the situation to be hopeless. The same, however, cannot be said for the staff of Margaret Carter Middle School, who will fight with everything they have to stay open – or rather, fundraise with everything they have.





	1. September

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, here's the fic that unanimously won the competition for my next multi-chapter story that I had last week, so I hope you all enjoy it! 
> 
> Just a note: Typically, I'm going to try and focus on both Fitzsimmons and Mackelena in each chapter, but I'll admit that it'll likely skew more towards FS more often than not, just something to keep in mind.

“Hey, Fitz, can I – is that more chocolate?”

Guiltily, Fitz paused in his frenzied effort to hide a small pile of chocolate bars in the top desk of his drawer. “Oh, hey Simmons…um…something you needed?”

Heaving an exasperated sigh and shaking her head, Jemma crossed her arms over her chest and stepped further into the classroom. Once she was standing in front of Fitz’s desk, she peered disappointedly down at him, the same look that she used on her students when they tried to form some kind of excuse as to why they didn’t have their homework. “Oh _Fitz_. It’s not a fundraiser if you’re buying up all of the product.”

“I only have so much willpower!” Fitz cried defensively. “How am I supposed to say no to candy bars?”

Jemma pressed her lips together to hide her amused smile as she shook her head again. “Maybe we _should_ have gone with Daisy’s calendar idea – at least that way you wouldn’t be in danger of solely funding us.”

Fitz pulled a horrified face, and it caused Jemma to finally break, laughter slipping past her lips and revealing her ruse. “Very funny, Simmons. But I’m not joking when I say that _no one_ would buy a calendar of ‘sexy teachers’ if I was in there with my shirt off.”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Jemma replied with a placating pat to his shoulder, though she figured that the laughter still lingering in her voice made the sentiment less believable, from the telling scowl that Fitz threw in her direction.

“ _Anyway_ ,” he started pointedly, “what was it that you wanted before?”

For a moment, Jemma had forgotten that she’d had a purpose in dropping by Fitz’s classroom, but at his not-so-subtle reminder, she said, “Oh! Yes, I was wondering if I could borrow a couple of your microscopes. I’m starting the cell unit tomorrow and I don’t have enough for the class, even putting them in pairs.”

“Sure thing,” he replied easily, getting up from his desk and crossing the classroom to the back counter, where a small amount of microscopes were set up in a row. “How many do you need?” he called over his shoulder.

“Two should do it, thank you,” Jemma answered a bit distractedly, taking the chance to check his desk drawer. Once it had been pulled all the way out, her eyebrows rose high on her forehead as she caught sight of the chocolate bars practically lining it. “Ugh _Fitz_!”

“What?!” When she raised her head to glare at him, she noticed him balancing the two requested microscopes in his arms, struggling a bit under the weight of them, and his cheeks slowly growing redder and redder as he figured out what she’d seen. “Hey, I’ve never claimed to have an ounce of self-control when it comes to chocolate.” Clearly trying to save face, he added, “’Sides, it’s not exactly surprising. You know this happens every year.”

With a sigh, Jemma perched lightly on the edge of Fitz’s desk and reminded him sadly, “This isn’t every other year though, Fitz. We’re not raising money for field trips or extra lab equipment, not without that tax money.”

Fitz grimaced, partly at her words, but also partly, it appeared, due to his continued juggling of the microscopes. Rolling her eyes fondly, Jemma stood from his desk and (only after trying to take one of the microscopes from Fitz and receiving a childish shake of the head in response) wordlessly gestured for him to follow her on the short walk from his classroom in the seventh grade hallway to hers in the eighth. As he trailed behind her, he grumbled, “If it wasn’t for that bastard Governor Ward and his filthy, lying bastard face… I still have no bloody clue how he even got elected.”

“Some people don’t care to look past the clearly false promises,” Jemma sighed, pushing open the door to her classroom and stepping back to allow Fitz to enter. “You can put them over there,” she told him, pointing toward a relatively empty table. Watching absently as Fitz did as she asked, Jemma felt a rush of sadness at the thought that this time next year, she might not be in this classroom setting up slides of plant cells or discussing recent scientific discoveries over tea with Fitz in the afternoons as they put off grading just a little bit longer.

“Hey.” At Fitz’s soft voice beside her, Jemma glanced up in surprise, a small smile flitting involuntarily across her lips when he nudged her shoulder with his. “Ward’s not shutting us down. We’re gonna prove to him that we’re prepared to fight for our school.”

As her smile became more genuine, Jemma’s mind flashed back almost a decade, to when she and Fitz had just been fresh-faced almost-college-graduates, interning at the tiny Margaret Carter Middle School in some tiny little town, entirely unaware that it was where they’d meet the person that would become their best friend in the world. The school meant so much to both of them, and Jemma couldn’t imagine wanting to be anywhere else or with anyone else.

Gently dropping her head to rest on Fitz’s shoulder, she murmured in agreement, “We’ll show him.”

\--

“Where d’you want this one?” Daisy asked with a low grunt, hefting a cardboard box into her arms.

Jemma glanced up from her clipboard, frowning in disapproval. “Didn’t you check the label first? Daisy, Fitz and I spent every night for a _week_ sorting the donations and labeling those boxes.”

With an overly dramatic sigh, Daisy craned her neck to check the side of the box, reading out loud, “‘House ware’.”

“Alright, good, the house ware section is over there.” Jemma pointed across the moderately-sized front lawn of the school to the proper table.

Barely a moment after Daisy had left to drop the box off, Mack stepped up to her, a pile of posters beneath his arm. “I’ve got that last batch of signs. Want me to go put ‘em up?”  

Jemma dropped her gaze to the posters tucked against his side, a little smile tugging at her lips as she saw the brightly painted letters spelling out ‘ _yard sale_ ’ and the copious amount of glitter glue. “I’m sure art class was a blast this week.”

Mack chuckled in amusement as he nodded. “Oh yeah. The kids love when I tell them I’m only grading on creativity. May, however? Not so much. Do me a favor and keep it between us?”

“Your secret’s safe with me,” Jemma assured him with a faux-serious nod and a salute. “Go ahead and hang them up, but try to be quick; it’ll be ten before we know it.”

“You got it, Simmons,” Mack replied with an understanding smile, then he headed off in the direction of the street.

In the short amount of time that it took him to staple the first sign onto a telephone pole, someone had come up beside him, and a little grin appeared on his face as he heard, “At this rate, you won’t be finished until sundown, Turtle Man.”

Chuckling to himself, Mack dropped his gaze from the poster to Elena, standing just to his right with her arms crossed over her chest and a smirk playing on her lips. “You always call me that, but you never give a straight answer on _why_.”

If possible, Elena’s smirk seemed to become even more mischievous as she playfully hummed and tipped her head back and forth in consideration. “Oh? Is it not obvious?”

“Not really,” Mack shot back, even though he was pretty sure where the teasing nickname had come from. Elena was known for being the fastest at just about anything she put her mind to – she was always the first to send in grades, the first at the coffee pot in the morning, and when she’d been challenged to a lighthearted battle of history trivia by Trip, she’d absolutely dominated her fellow social studies teacher by beating him to answering each and every question. To Elena, _everyone_ was a turtle; he was just the unfortunate victim of the nickname, surely in retaliation for the one that he’d stuck her with some time ago. “ _Yo-Yo_ ,” he tacked on, just to see her grimace.

Of course, he could tell that by now, her irritation with the name was all for show and if she was annoyed by anything, it was how much it had grown on her. “Well, there is always tomorrow,” Elena told him breezily, the glint in her eyes telling him that the day when she explained ‘Turtle Man’ was most likely never coming. She glanced over her shoulder, toward the front lawn of the school, where the others were still emptying the boxes that Jemma and Fitz had meticulously sorted. “Alright, give them to me,” she said suddenly, gesturing impatiently toward the posters held securely under his arm.

“What?” he asked, taken aback by the demand.

“It will go much faster if I do it,” she explained as though it was obvious, waving a spare stapler that he hadn’t noticed she’d been holding. Then, without waiting for a response, she swiped the posters from beneath his arm and wordlessly took off in the direction of the next telephone pole.

For a long moment, Mack was left staring after her in stunned disbelief. Then, he chuckled to himself, shaking his head, and headed back to help the others with the finishing touches on setting up.

He’d been carrying a particularly heavy box toward the ‘books’ table when he quite abruptly found himself stumbling, nearly losing his footing completely. “What _the_ …”

“Oi! Watch where you’re going!”

Rolling his eyes heavenward, Mack prayed for patience before turning to face Hunter, sitting casually up against one of the tables, one hand buried in a bag of potato chips. “What are you doing, man?” he asked in exasperation.

“Hiding from Simmons, _obviously_ ,” Hunter replied, shaking his head as though Mack was the one not making sense. “If I get barked at for standing around _one more time_ , I’m gonna snap that damn clipboard of hers in half. Who the hell put her in charge, anyway?”

“She _volunteered_ ,” Mack reminded him, “which both Coulson and May approved. I think if you should be hiding from anyone, it’s _May_ , and believe me, she _will_ find you.”

Hunter made a face at that, throwing a slightly worried glance around the edge of the table. “She’s not still pissed about my ‘how to spot a hell-beast’ lesson, is she? That was _ages_ ago, and Coulson hired me on full-time anyway!”

Mack heaved a put-upon sigh, shifting to hold the box with one arm as he reached up with his free hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. It had only been the previous year that Coulson had finally offered the infamous substitute teacher Lance Hunter the position of full-time home ec-slash-health teacher when Lincoln had left. Personally, Mack sometimes wondered what their boss had been thinking, but rumor had it that he’d been impressed by the “perfect” mushroom soup that Hunter had taught Joey’s gym class to make once.

“Look,” he finally said, ignoring Hunter’s obvious worry about May, “if Bobbi finds out you skipped out on helping today, you won’t have to worry about Simmons _or_ May.”

Hunter grimaced, but ultimately got to his feet. “Bloody hell-beast,” he grumbled under his breath as he headed toward where Jemma was directing the other teachers, “those kids are gonna thank me for that lesson someday, gonna save them a _world_ of trouble, it is.”

Pointedly pretending that he hadn’t heard Hunter’s mutterings, Mack continued on toward the book table, surprised to find that Elena was perched on the edge of it. Though her attention was on a thick old tome with yellowing pages, there was a smirk playing on her lips. At his approach, she flipped the book shut and set it aside, leaning back on her hands as she directed her growing smirk up at him.

“Yeah yeah yeah,” Mack cut in before she could start, grinning as he set his box down, “You beat me here, I’m so slow; I know exactly what you’re thinking, you don’t need to say a word.”

“Perhaps not _exactly_ ,” Elena replied playfully. She didn’t elaborate any further, and instead set to helping him empty the box and organize the final batch of books.

They were just finishing up when people started to arrive, and time began to pass quickly from there.

By that evening, when the sky was just beginning to darken, Mack was quite unsurprised to hear a teasing call of, “Oh, Turtle Man?”

Turning from where he’d been folding up a now-empty table, Mack found Elena standing next to an older woman, a cardboard box on the table behind them. Chuckling under his breath, Mack slid his hands into the pockets of his worn jeans and ambled over, asking curiously, “What is it, Yo-Yo?” as if he had no idea, as if she hadn’t been doing this all day.

“Loretta here needs a hand getting this box to her car,” Elena explained, reaching back to tap a hand against the box.

“Sure thing,” Mack agreed easily, and both women stepped back as he hefted the relatively heavy box into his arms. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Elena making absolutely no effort to hide the way she watched his biceps flex, a pleased little ‘hmm’ coming from her.

Pressing his lips together to hide his amused grin, Mack allowed the woman, Loretta, to lead him to her car. She thanked him, and embarrassed the hell out of him when she told him to “tell his girlfriend” thank you as well, but he didn’t bother to correct her.

When he’d returned to the middle of the front lawn, where Jemma was directing the clean-up procedure, he commented to her, “Seems like things went well today.”

“As well as they could, yes,” Jemma replied with a tired sigh, the whole situation they’d found themselves in seeming to weigh heavily upon her – much like it did with them all.

“Thanks to you, ‘course,” Fitz put in as he walked up to them, smiling warmly as he gently elbowed her in the ribs until a tiny smile tugged at her lips. “We’ll get it all sorted, don’t you worry.”

When Jemma released another soft sigh as her only response, Mack couldn’t help but add, “Fitz is right. It’s all gonna work out in the end, Simmons. You’ll see.”

“Let’s hope so,” Jemma murmured.


	2. October

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, yes, I am well aware that it's been almost a year since I updated this. Irl, you know? Anyway, I was going to save this fic for when I began my Summer of Writing in June, but I had sudden inspiration to finish and post this chapter tonight, so...here it is. Hope you guys are still as excited about this fic as you were last year!

“ _Whoa_ , this place looks amazing!”

A proud grin playing around her lips, Jemma turned at Daisy’s voice, though her eyebrows darted up in surprise at the ghastly, bloody makeup covering her face. “Thank you, we certainly put all of our effort into it. And I see you’re ready as well?”

Daisy smirked, then rolled her eyes back and dropped open her jaw, making some sort of growling noise, scratching at the air with hands, curled like claws. When she’d finished, she was grinning once more. “Trip and I are all ready to scare the pants off of everyone. Hey, d’you think I can hide in the closet and scare Fitz?”

“ _No_ ,” Jemma answered firmly. “I still can’t quite believe Coulson approved your jump scares.”

“It’ll be _fine_ , maybe a couple ruined pants and traumatized kids, no problem.” When Jemma narrowed her eyes in disapproval, Daisy planted her hands on her hips and shot back, “Oh, like they won’t be terrified after coming in _here_ and seeing a dead body?”

She gestured to the incredibly lifelike, faux corpse resting on the table, surrounded by beakers filled with colored chemicals. It was the centerpiece of the mad scientist lab that she and Fitz had worked so hard on for the haunted house they were throwing that night.

Jemma huffed, crossing her arms over the front of her bloodstained lab coat. “Well, it’s not the same thing. This is _science_.”

Daisy scoffed, rolling her eyes exaggeratedly. “Yeah, okay, whatever Simmons. I’m gonna go to the caf and grab one of Hunter’s Dead Man’s Finger Sandwiches before people start arriving. For how disgusting they look, those things are _delicious_.”

“You’ll likely run into Fitz on your way,” Jemma commented dryly, “that was where he ran off to.” Glimpsing Daisy’s mischievous grin as she headed out of the room, she called after her, “And don’t _scare_ him, Daisy! I mean it!”

It wasn’t much longer before Fitz returned, the pockets of his similarly bloodstained lab coat filled with spider cookies and Daisy’s favorite finger sandwiches. “Man,” he mumbled around his mouthful of cookie, “the kids did great with the decorations. You’d never believe we barely spent fifty bucks on this whole thing.”

“It’s lucky so many parents helped with making the costumes as well,” Jemma added. Then, chuckling, she tacked on, “And Coulson, of course. Who knew he was a closet seamstress?”

“May seemed to,” Fitz commented, his brow furrowing thoughtfully. “But, she seems to know everything about everyone, so…” He trailed off, shrugging as he shoved another cookie into his mouth.

Rolling her eyes fondly, Jemma told him, “Finish those up before we start, will you? It won’t be as scary if you’re chomping away while I give my mad scientist dialogue.”

“Yeah yeah,” he muttered. “Did you _really_ have to make up backstories as to _why_ we became mad scientists? I really don’t think the kids are gonna ask if you became evil because your cat was hit by a car when you were six.”

“They _might_ , and I want to be prepared!” Jemma shot back defensively. “And it wasn’t just Professor Fluffstein – did you even _read_ the notes I wrote out for you?”

“Of _course_ I did!” Fitz cried defensively. “After the cat died, you tried to bring it back to life, a la Victor Frankenstein, and when it didn’t work, it became your life’s mission to find a way to cure death. Along the way, you lost sight of your original goal and ultimately became obsessed with being the first person to bring someone back from the dead, became obsessed with the fame and the power and the control. We met at university, where we found we shared the same goals, and partnered up, eventually bringing good ol’ Billy here back.” With that, he patted their fake corpse on the shoulder. “See? I did my homework.”

“Well…good.” Jemma wasn’t quite sure what else to say, too taken aback by the fact that Fitz, who whined about having to grade tests at the end of a unit, had taken the time and effort to read and memorize her ridiculously complicated character backstories.

Wandering over to the shelves lined with jars, Fitz made a face and poked at one of them, where a very realistic-looking fake liver was suspended in liquid. “Did you really have to keep poor Professor Fluffstein’s _liver_ though?”

“It’s _science_ , Fitz!” Jemma reminded him, her surprise fading to be replaced by exasperation. “It requires dissection!”

“ _Fake_ science,” he muttered petulantly, but Jemma ultimately let it go, as the group of students that had signed up to participate in their mad science lab began trickling in then.

Eventually, when all of the excitedly giggling children had been directed to their places, either as failed experiments or helping to work the sight gags of zombie animals in cages or “Billy’s” dramatic revival, it was show time. Screams could already be heard echoing through the halls, and as dry ice began rolling in a thick fog along the floor of the lab, Jemma and Fitz shared an eager grin.

-

“Man, this thing is noisy,” Mack griped under his breath, lifting an arm above his head and wincing at the way that his metal suit clanked at the movement.

“You’re lucky that we could even find a knight’s costume in your size,” Elena shot back, throwing a quick glance out the window of her classroom into the darkened halls, making sure that no one was coming. Satisfied, she pulled open the drawer of her desk and grabbed the Halloween makeup that she’d stashed there, quickly touching up her pale, ghostly face. They’d been scaring people in the room’s Victorian parlor set for almost an hour now, and the makeup was beginning to run slightly as sweat beaded on her forehead.

Mack scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest, though the effect was ruined slightly by the sound of metal clashing against metal. “I really should’ve taken up Hunter’s offer to run the snack table with him, shouldn’t I?”

Replacing the makeup in the drawer and closing it, Elena shot a glare over her shoulder at Mack and propped one hand on her hip. “ _Oh_? You would _really_ rather be with Hunter right now?”

She only had to wait a moment for him to grimace simply at the thought, and a victorious smirk crossed her lips. Without a word, he reached up to tug down the faceplate of the costume, effectively hiding his face.

Elena opened her mouth, intent on continuing to tease him (he made it so easy, after all), but she paused when she heard the sound of children’s nervous giggles and hurried footsteps heading their way. Forgetting, for the moment, about giving Mack a hard time, she retook her place behind a curtain hung alongside the door to the classroom.

Slowly, it creaked open, and a handful of children spilled inside. There was a beat, then one of them asked in a hushed whisper, “Um…hello?”

Pressing her lips together to hide a smirk, Elena waited just another moment, then popped out from behind the curtain. Already quite practiced from the night, she slipped right into howling like a tortured ghost, holding up her hands and swooping menacingly toward the group of kids.

A series of shrieks went up in the room, and they hurried to the other side of it, huddling together. She dove back behind the curtain, peaking through the little slit in it that allowed her to still see into the classroom. Smiling in amusement, she watched them as they noticed the paintings on the walls that Fitz and Mack had managed to rig up with motion detectors, so that the eyes that followed them around.

Then, right on cue, the terrified children ended up right in front of Mack, who had been standing as still as a statue ever since they’d first come into the room. And, at the perfect moment, he moved, lifting his arms and taking slow, measured steps forward, his armor clanking with every movement.

The children gave another series of shrieks (interspersed with laughter, of course), lightly pushing and shoving each other as they rushed to get out of the classroom first, throwing glances over their shoulders now and then to make sure that Mack wasn’t following them.

Only once she was sure that they were gone and there wasn’t another group close behind them, Elena carefully lifted the skirt of her tattered white dress so that she wouldn’t accidentally step on the hem. Coming back out from behind the curtain, she then carefully closed the door, making sure that they were set up for the next scare.

Picking back up right where they’d left off in their earlier conversation, she started, “I cannot believe that you’re complaining about _that_ ,” she paused then, waving a hand at Mack’s suit of armor, “when I am wearing _this_.” And with that, she arched an eyebrow and gestured to the tightly-tied corset of her ball gown. “Have you ever worn one of these things? That’s the _real_ horror here.”

Mack’s deep chuckle echoed out from under his helmet just before he lifted the faceplate once more. “Can’t say that I’ve ever worn one, no. Doesn’t look too comfortable, though.” Then, she noticed his eyes dropping to take in her outfit – though it wasn’t just _sympathy_ that she saw reflected in them.

Hardly taken aback by the attraction that he seemed to think she was oblivious to, however, Elena simply smirked and folded her arms over her chest. “ _Oh_? Something tells me that is not what you are really thinking.”

Startled, Mack lifted his gaze to meet hers once more. “Wait, what?” he asked, his mouth hanging open almost dumbly, and Elena grinned in response.

But, the sound of another group headed their way filtered into the room then, and as she moved to get back behind her curtain, she threw him a wink and teased, “Saved by the bell, it seems.”


	3. November

“Would you just _look_ at this little guy? He’s just the cutest little thing I’ve ever seen!” Fitz exclaimed, pausing and kneeling down to get closer to the excitable Spaniel that had been prancing along beside him, jumping at his ankles every chance that it got. “Oh yes he is, _yes he is_!”

With a chuckle, Riley, one of the seventh graders in Fitz’s homeroom, offered, “Wanna switch, Mr. Fitz?” He held out the Spaniel’s leash, nodding toward the German Shepherd that Fitz had been walking.

Chewing his lip, Fitz glanced between the Spaniel and his dog, who was currently tugging at her leash, anxious to be moving again. “Oh, alright, but this isn’t anything personal, Lulu.” He gave Lulu a quick pet on the head, then handed her leash to Riley.

 “His name’s Quincy,” Riley explained as they exchanged dogs. “I think his owner is one of the teachers at the high school.”

“Oh, _Quincy_ , is it?” Fitz grinned when the Spaniel barked eagerly at the sound of his name, sniffing his hand as he held it out, then licking at his fingers.

Without a doubt, dog walking had to be his favorite of the fundraisers that they’d done so far (though the chocolate _had_ been pretty good, he had to admit).

“You’re not taking a break already, are you?”

Fitz glanced up at the sound of Jemma’s familiar voice, catching sight of her heading their way on the sidewalk. He gave a little chuckle as all of the students in his homeroom chorused, “Hi Ms. Simmons!”

“Not taking a break,” Fitz assured her, standing from his kneel and moving past his students to meet her where she and her eighth grade homeroom were lingering behind them. As he walked, Quincy happily trotted behind him. “Just getting better acquainted with my friend Quincy here,” he went on, gesturing to the Spaniel at his side, who was now sniffing experimentally at the Beagle that Jemma was walking.

Jemma glanced down at Quincy, then cocked an amused eyebrow at Fitz. “You’re loving this, aren’t you?”

Planting his hands on his hips and narrowing his eyes in mock-offense, he replied, “Oh, _of course_ I am; if Coulson won’t approve my monkey lab assistant, at least I can spend some time with a bunch of adorable dogs for a few weeks.”

Jemma gave a fond groan at his mention of the monkey that he’d been trying to get Coulson to agree that he needed in order to teach his classes for _years_ now, but he also heard some of the students giggling at it as well. Just as much as his long-suffering best friend, his students had to hear about his intense desire to have a monkey as a pet quite often (though most of the time, he just brought it up to make them laugh).

“Ugh, _Fitz_ ,” she sighed, rolling her eyes, even as a smile tugged at the corners of her lips. However, despite her smile, he could see the obvious (well, obvious to _him_ , at least) tension in her expression and the set of her shoulders, the stress of everything that had been going on lately weighing on her. He’d noticed that it was plaguing her since they’d gotten news about the lack of funding and the school possibly closing down, but it had only seemed to grow more and more with each fundraiser.

Hating to see her like this, Fitz tried to think of something, _anything_ that he could do or say to take the stress off of her shoulders, if only for a little bit. Glancing around, his gaze then caught on Quincy, and he had a flash of inspiration.

Bending down, he scooped the Spaniel up, holding him out toward Jemma. “Quincy, Ms. Simmons; Ms. Simmons, Quincy.”

She gave another little roll of her eyes at him, but when Quincy gave a happy bark and began licking at her face, she couldn’t seem to help it; a brilliant smile curved her lips as she laughed. “Oh hello, Quincy,” she said through her giggles, reaching out to scratch him behind his furry ears.

Seeing the way that she lit up, seeing that beautiful smile on her face, it had an answering grin spreading across his own lips. Sometimes, Fitz could swear that her happiness was like air to him, and making her happy with something so deceptively simple had him feeling as though he could finally breathe (which was actually rather at odds with the way that his breath caught in his throat then).

-

“Oh, come on, Zach! Don’t do that!” Mack called as one of his seventh graders teased the Golden Retriever that he was walking with his Pop Tart.

“Sorry, Mr. Mackenzie!” Zach replied over his shoulder, popping the rest of the pastry into his mouth, even though he didn’t sound very apologetic.

Shaking his head and giving a quiet sigh of exasperation, Mack checked his watch, then told the kids, “Alright, let’s turn and head back now.”

After he had received confirmations from the group, Mack checked both sides of the road, then herded his homeroom over the crosswalk and to the sidewalk on the other side of the road. They began dutifully heading back toward the school, and were just about there when he heard the sound of quickened footsteps moving toward them, from somewhere off to his right.

Curious, he glanced over, and found Elena and Joey jogging in their direction from one of the other side streets off of the main road that the school was on. The group of students with them was a mixture of some of the more athletically-inclined kids from the different school years, and it was clear that they’d all been taking their dogs for a jog rather than a walk.

“Hey, slow down!” he teased, throwing a grin at them.

As Joey and a smirking Elena did slow their pace to join them, the kids did as well. Elena moved to walk beside him, the Collie that she was walking easily trotting alongside his Dachshund. Throwing an elbow lightly into his ribs, she told him, “We can’t _all_ be turtles, Mack.”

Nodding to Joey and the students that he and Elena had been jogging with, he told her playfully, “You know, I’m hurt, Yo-Yo.”

“Oh?” she prompted, arching a curious brow.

“Yeah,” he replied, his lips quirking up at the corners into a teasing grin, “why haven’t I ever been invited for a jog?”

Mack had expected her to make another joke about him being a turtle in response, and he’d tease her back, just like they always did. But instead, she simply shot him a considering glance, a secretive smile playing around her lips, and didn’t say a word about it as they reached the school’s parking lot.

What he did _not_ expect, however, was for her to show up at his classroom door the next morning, her group of joggers with her, all of them ready to go.

And, though Mack hated to admit it, it wasn’t very long at all before his was eating his words from the previous day for breakfast.

Panting and pausing every so often to bend over with his hands on his knees as he fought to catch his breath, the Black Lab that he was holding the leash of straining to keep up with the others, Mack was well aware that Elena had gotten one over on him. Every single time that he stopped to take a breath, she threw a smirk and a wink at him over her shoulder, and he could even hear some muffled giggles coming from the students with them.

After awhile, Elena mercifully stopped jogging, seemingly in favor of walking the rest of the way – much to his complete relief. Mack caught up to her then, still swiping some sweat from his forehead, and still slightly out of breath. “Alright, alright, you got me. Very funny, Yo-Yo.”

Elena glanced up at him, raising her eyebrows in clear delight. Smugly, she pointed out, “You know, Turtle Man, lifting weights does not make you fast.” She paused, then added thoughtfully, “Perhaps, you should try training with me sometime; I can give you some cardio.”

And, while he was still trying to puzzle out how in the world he was supposed to respond to _that_ , she took off at a jog once more, the kids following right behind her, and leaving him in the dust.

-

“This is Coco, and look, here’s Peanut, and that’s Ollie, and –”

“How many pictures of dogs do you have on there?” Mack asked, arching his eyebrows in disbelief.

Fitz frowned, glancing down at his phone, where he’d been swiping through all of the pictures that he’d taken of the dogs that he and his students had been walking over the past few days. “Uh…just a few.”

“Uh- _huh_.” Mack shook his head, dropping his gaze back to his plate, grabbing a couple of fries and dipping them in his ketchup before lifting them to his mouth.

“Oh!” Around the bite of burger that Fitz had just taken, he explained to Mack, “Here’s a picture of Quincy and Jemma – he absolutely _loves_ her.” He turned his phone to show the screen to him, which held a picture of a beaming Jemma holding the little Spaniel as he licked at her face. “Can’t say I blame him, though.”

Cocking his head, Mack leaned back in the booth of the restaurant where they were grabbing dinner and commented, “I didn’t know you and Jemma were doing joint walks.”

Flushing slightly, Fitz locked his phone and placed on the table beside his plate, shrugging. “Uh, well, we aren’t. We just keep running into each other on our routes, that’s all.”

“Yeah, okay,” Mack replied, his tone making it clear that he wasn’t at all convinced.

Fitz shifted a bit uncomfortably, rubbing at the back of his neck as he cleared his throat. “I, um, I saw you jogging with Elena the other day. I thought that she and Joey had decided to do that together?”

Scoffing, Mack rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and explained, “I made a dumb joke, and she called me on it, that’s all.”

For a moment, Fitz squinted at him almost a bit suspiciously, as though he could tell that Mack was holding something back. But, then he nodded and simply said, “Oh. Yeah, that sounds like her.”

“Sorry I’m late!”

Both Fitz and Mack looked up as Hunter’s voice carried over the buzz of conversation in the restaurant, and he didn’t seem to care that he’d gained not just their attention, but _everyone else’s_ as he waved at them. Finally reaching them, he slid into the booth beside Fitz, reaching across him to grab a menu out of the plastic holder they were in up against the wall.

“Bobbi was on me about catching up with my grading,” Hunter explained as he briefly scanned the menu, “though it’s not like I’m _that_ behind.” He shook his head, then closed the menu without really looking at it and slapped it down onto the table, asking them seriously, “Does this look infected?”

And then, he held out his right hand to them, which had an angry red mark on the back of it.

“Uh…” Fitz glanced at Mack, who shook his head and shrugged his shoulders, before asking carefully, “What…is it?”

Hunter lifted his hand up to his face to inspect it for himself, explaining, “Oh, one of those blasted dogs bit me this morning. I was _trying_ to keep the damn thing from eating everything that he could get his greedy little paws on, but I think he finally got tired of me stopping him and decided to eat _me_ instead.”

Mack rolled his eyes at Hunter’s theatrics, while Fitz just gaped at him in clear disbelief.

Reaching across the table to steal some of Mack’s fries from his plate and carelessly stuffing them in his mouth, Hunter just shrugged at them and asked, “What?”


	4. December - Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was actually supposed to have two fundraisers, but since this one took longer than I'd expected, I've separated December into two parts. The next one should be posted next week, though!
> 
> And, fun facts: I actually have a Batman piggy bank (my sister gave it to me for Christmas a couple of years ago), and my high school actually had both dodgeball and musical chairs tournaments, which were a lot of fun (as a spectator, of course).

“Fitz!”

Startled at the sound of his name coming from behind him, Fitz paused with his hand on the front door of the school, glancing over his shoulder to find Jemma hurrying towards him, waving a hand above her head. “Oh, hey Jemma,” he greeted, smiling warmly as he opened the door and held it so that she could pass through ahead of him.

“Good morning, Fitz,” she replied, throwing a smile at him over her shoulder as she waited for him to follow her inside. “Cold today, isn’t it?”

“This is nothing,” he insisted, shaking his head as they both knocked the snow clinging to their shoes onto the already soaked-through mat just inside the building. “You should try spending a winter night in Glasgow.”

Jemma rolled her eyes at him as she unwound her lilac-colored scarf from around her neck. “Oh, don’t be so dramatic, Fitz. It’s not as though England’s in the tropics, you know.” Nodding her head to the table set up near the stairs leading to the second floor, she asked, “Did you bring anything?”

“Yep,” he replied, following her as she began to lead the way over to the table, which had a big, hand-painted sign that read ‘ _Penny Wars_ ’ taped to the front of it.

“Hello Autumn,” Jemma greeted the young girl sitting behind the table. Fitz knew that she was not only in Jemma’s homeroom, but also that she was the student council president, and had volunteered to sit at the Penny Wars table for a couple of days during the week that the fundraiser was going on. “How’s it been so far?”

“Good,” Autumn answered, grinning as she tapped the large plastic jar that read ‘ _Eighth Grade_ ’, “we’re ahead.”

Jemma offered her an answering grin as she removed her gloves and dug into the purse slung over her shoulder. “Well, let me just help with keeping that lead, then.” With that, she dropped a handful of pennies into the jar, the coins clinking against the nice little pile of them already waiting inside. Then, she turned to Fitz and arched an eyebrow. “Mr. Fitz?”

“Ah, yes, it does look as though my team could use some help,” Fitz pointed out, tipping the ‘Seventh Grade’ jar toward him so that he could see the small pile of change inside of it. “Though, it would take a lot to catch up with yours, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, I imagine that it would,” she replied with a little smirk.

Fitz gave a nod of agreement at that, then reached into his messenger bag, passing the stack of graded papers inside of it to grasp a good-sized plastic bag – one that was nearly filled to the top with pennies. He watched as both Autumn and Jemma’s mouths dropped open at the sight of it, and he wordlessly (and rather smugly) opened the bag, then began to pour its contents into his class’s jar.

When he was finished, and the echoed sound of clanging change had faded from the school hallway, he folded up the now empty bag and put it back into his messenger bag. Then, he gestured to the jars and observed, “Ah, looks as though we’ve managed to snag that lead from you.”

Jemma’s obvious shock only lasted another moment before she folded her arms over her chest, narrowing her eyes as she asked, “Broke into the Batman piggy bank, did you, Mr. Fitz?”

Immediately, Fitz felt his cheeks flushing at the mention of the piggy bank that Jemma only knew about because she’d been to his flat so many times (and had a habit of making herself at home there, whether he liked it or not – _not_ that he didn’t, of course). He could hear Autumn’s muffled giggles as Jemma smirked at him, but despite his reddened cheeks, he replied simply, “Indeed I did, Ms. Simmons.” Then, he turned to Autumn and said, “Have a good day,” and began to head up the stairs to his classroom.

As he had expected, Jemma was hot on his heels, and caught up with him as he was reaching the second floor. “What do you think you’re doing, Fitz?” she asked, shooting him a suspicious glance.

“Helping with the fundraiser, of course,” he answered innocently, giving a little shrug as he turned left to head down the seventh grade hallway. “Aren’t you always telling me to get more involved in things?”

“I…” She trailed off, then pursed her lips, once more narrowing her eyes at him. “You’re not fooling me, you know. If you want a competition, I’ll give you a competition, Fitz.”

“I thought it was the _kids_ that were supposed to be competing,” he pointed out as he unlocked the door to his classroom. When he entered it, Jemma followed him, and she hovered by his desk with her arms crossed as he began to unpack the papers that he’d brought home to grade last night.

“You just watch your back, Leopold Fitz,” she told him, unfolding her arms to poke him pointedly in the chest. “My kids are going to win this competition, you’ll see.”

As she turned on her heel and began striding toward the door, he called after her amusedly, “What, you aren’t going to tell me that I’ve made a very powerful enemy or something?”

Upon reaching the door, Jemma threw a glare at him over her shoulder, then left the classroom, and Fitz finally gave into the laughter that had been building up inside of him, utterly entertained by Jemma’s incredibly predictable need to win _everything_.

-

“We’ve got to beat them.”

Both Elena and Bobbi glanced up at Jemma’s abrupt arrival in the teacher’s lounge during recess, exchanging a confused glance before Bobbi asked, “Uh, beat who?”

Jemma pulled out a chair at the little table they were sitting at, arching her eyebrows as she explained, “The guys. Fitz brought a whole _bag_ filled with pennies today for the seventh graders’ jar, and I’m sure Hunter and Mack are in on it too.”

“I don’t know about that,” Elena replied carefully, no doubt afraid of incurring her wrath as well.

After all, Jemma was well aware that they _all_ knew how seriously she tended to take competition of any sort. Though, she did have to admit that the supposedly _lighthearted_ dodgeball competition that they’d had last year, during which Jemma had coached her team to victory, despite knowing nothing about dodgeball the week before, did give them a pretty good reason to believe that.

“Oh come on,” she replied, rolling her eyes toward the ceiling, “do you really think that they would miss an opportunity to get one over on us?”

Plus, they hadn’t seen Fitz’s _smug_ smirk or that giant bag of pennies, and they hadn’t heard his laughter echoing down the hall. She just _knew_ that he was up to something, and, well, Fitz was horrible at hiding things like this from her.

Bobbi scoffed, curling a hand around the coffee mug in front of her as she said, “Well, I know _Hunter_ would, but I’m not sure about Mack.”

“Trust me on this,” Jemma insisted, shaking her head. “We’ve got to bring in as much change as we can, and get the kids to do the same. Not that they’ll be hard to convince; I know they’re already excited about winning that movie day.”

She watched as Elena met Bobbi’s eyes once more, and after a moment, Bobbi smiled and shrugged. Then, Elena grinned and turned back to Jemma, telling her, “Oh, alright. It will be fun to beat them, after all.”

“I can already see Hunter’s face,” Bobbi added, a faraway look in her eyes as the smile on her lips grew. “And, this will be a much more satisfying revenge than getting him to pay me back for that stapler he broke.”

There was a beat of silence, then Elena asked in confusion, “How did he break your stapler?”

Bobbi groaned, briefly closing her eyes and shaking her head, before explaining simply, “He thought he saw a spider. Just…just don’t ask, okay?”

Startled, Jemma glanced at Elena, who also looked quite alarmed by the story. Lightly clearing her throat, Jemma then not-so-subtly changed the subject, asking, “So…we’re going to war, then?”

“Yes, we are,” Bobbi answered, nodding firmly.

“Definitely,” Elena added, a little smirk beginning to play on her lips.

-

“You should’ve seen her face,” Fitz told Mack, a chuckle leaving his lips as he followed him down the stairs at the end of the day. “She was so _shocked_ – in fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so caught off-guard.”

“It does take a lot to get one over on her,” Mack agreed, “but…aren’t you afraid she’s gonna retaliate somehow? I mean, you know how Jemma can be; remember the musical chairs incident?”

Immediately, Fitz grimaced, no doubt going back to a couple of years ago, when they’d had a fun little ‘Musical Chairs Tournament’ for the students. For fun, they’d even had a little game with the teachers, which the kids had absolutely _loved_. However, Jemma had (rather violently, in Mack’s opinion) hip-checked Fitz out of the way to get the last seat that he’d been going for. He’d been knocked to the floor, and the students had roared with laughter as a red-faced had Jemma apologized to him.

“Yeah, okay, so she can get a bit…intense,” Fitz conceded, “but come on, she knows I was just giving her a hard time.”

As they reached the first floor, Mack noticed Elena standing by the Penny Wars table, and he was about to call a good night to her when she threw a rather devious smirk right at them. And, then she proceeded to slip a crisp five dollar bill into the seventh grade jar, subtracting _five hundred points_ from their total.

“Have a good evening, boys,” she called, waving at them as she then turned on her heel and strode out the front door.

For a moment, Mack and Fitz just stood there in shocked silence. Then, Fitz turned to him and asked in a horrified whisper, “What just happened?”

Mack glanced down at him, still stunned speechless for another handful of seconds. Then, he narrowed his eyes and muttered, “Damn it Fitz, this is _your_ fault.”

“ _My fault_?” he repeated, his eyebrows darting up his forehead. “How is it _my_ fault?!”

“You _know_ this was all Jemma’s doing,” Mack pointed out, gesturing to the table nearby (but making sure to keep his voice low enough that the student manning it couldn’t overhear their conversation, of course). “She’s convinced Yo-Yo, and Bobbi too, no doubt, to help their class win, all because _you_ had to go and rile her up!”

“I wasn’t trying to ‘rile her up’,” Fitz argued, folding his arms over his chest, “I was just teasing her!”

Mack groaned, rolling his eyes and shaking his head, but he didn’t bother to call Fitz out on his absurd way of flirting with Jemma, or his absolute denial about it. Instead, he walked over to the table, and found exactly what he’d thought that he might: the eighth grade jar more than halfway filled with a sea of copper.

And, of course, their own jar was awash with bills and silver coins, no doubt putting their total _far_ into the negative.

“Yeah, you guys aren’t looking so good, are you?” Jacob, the eighth grade boy currently running the table, commented.

“No, we aren’t,” Mack replied flatly.

Fitz stepped up beside him then, groaning at the sight of their jar. “This was all because of Ms. Simmons, wasn’t it?”

Though Jacob grinned at the question, he simply shrugged in response. “I can’t say who’s added what, sorry Mr. Fitz.”

Fitz grabbed Mack’s arm, tugging on it until Mack had allowed him to lead them toward the front door and away from Jacob. Under his breath, he told him urgently, “We’ve _got_ to talk to Hunter.”

-

“Worried?”

Elena watched as Mack whirled around in surprise at her question, biting her lip to hide her smirk as he briefly held a hand to his heart. “Don’t do that,” he told her, blowing out a heavy breath and leaning back in his desk chair. “And no, I’m not worried.”

Arching an eyebrow at that, Elena perched on the edge of his desk, inquiring, “Oh?”

Over the past few days, she, Bobbi, and Jemma had been going head-to-head with Mack, Fitz, and Hunter, all of the kids in their homerooms gleefully joining the competition (and, though she knew that the sixth grade was working just as hard, Daisy was also rooting for them, and had slipped a few dollars in the eighth grade jar here and there). Now, though, it was Friday, and Coulson was due to announce the winner as soon as classes officially began.

“Yeah,” he replied simply, his tone confident as he shot her a little grin before returning to the pile of paintings that he was sifting through.

Idly picking up the painting on the top of the pile, what she imagined had to be a horse done by one of the sixth graders, she pointed out, “I saw quite a bit of green in your jar.”

“Could say the same to you,” Mack shot back without missing a beat. Then, nodding to the painting, he asked, “What do you think I should give him?”

Elena studied the painting for another moment, then handed it back to him, answering, “You should give him an ‘A’. Painting is hard, you know.”

Chuckling, he asked her, “Ah, you weren’t a big fan of art class, were you?”

She shrugged, reaching back down to his desk to pick up a little ceramic dog that had been sitting there. The ears were lopsided and the legs were all different lengths, while the uneven layers of paint didn’t quite cover the whole dog. “My teacher always told me that I got frustrated and gave up too quickly,” she explained. Then, waving the dog at him, she asked, “What did you give this?”

Mack took the dog from her, looking down at it himself for a moment, then setting it back down before replying, “It got a C+, actually. But, my middle school art teacher wasn’t as generous as I am.”

Elena’s eyebrows darted up her forehead, and she glanced back down at the dog. “ _You_ made that?”

“Yep,” he replied, giving another chuckle at her expression, which was no doubt displaying her surprise at the revelation. “Wasn’t very good with clay back then – I got better in high school. See, all it takes is the right teacher.”

“ _Ah_ , so what you’re saying is that I need a better teacher?” she asked, tilting her head and raising an eyebrow. When he nodded, she went on, “Well, are _you_ available?”

When the door to the classroom was thrown open at that moment, they both glanced up hurriedly to find a handful of his students walking inside. “’Morning Mr. Mackenzie, Ms. Rodriguez!” they greeted, giggling with each other as they went to their desks.

“Good morning,” Elena told them, clearing her throat as she stood from Mack’s desk. “I should get back to my classroom.”

“Yeah, probably,” Mack agreed, looking just as flustered as she felt at that moment.

As she began to move toward the door, however, she paused and turned back to him, calling teasingly, “Oh, did you want to congratulate me now, or later?”

Mack rolled his eyes even as he gave a little chuckle of amusement. Waving her toward the door, he replied, “Get back to your classroom, Yo-Yo.”

Though Elena did leave then without another word, she did throw a little wink back at him.

(And, when the results were announced twenty minutes later, proving the eighth graders to be the winners of the _very_ close competition, she received a phone call from him saying, “Guess I owe you a congratulations”.)

**Author's Note:**

> You can also find me on tumblr - I'm theartofbeinganerd over there as well!


End file.
